Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to electronic messaging, and more particularly, to aiding electronic mail users in making email correspondence decisions.
In computer communication networks, one method of communication is electronic mail (email), in which a sending user prepares and sends a message over some form of computer network to a receiving user, usually on a remote system. Typically, upon being sent, an email message will be temporarily stored in a server system connected to the network and then retrieved from the server by an email client application operated by a recipient on the client system at the recipient's convenience. Most email clients, which are front-end computer programs that are used to read, write, and send email messages, also provide software to facilitate reading, saving, printing and replying to email messages. Email, as opposed to traditional paper based memos and postal systems or voice-based telecommunications systems such as telephones, is characteristic in that a user can send information at any time across the world as easily as across the office, to a group of people or a single recipient, or receive and view information therefrom, without the user leaving his or her desk, at any time that is convenient for the user. Other advantages include the user not having to take a note of information. Until recently, the use of electronic mail was the single biggest generator of traffic volume on the Internet.
Email has become a ubiquitous and convenient means of communication for both business and personal use, and an active email user sends and receives a number of messages in any given day. Nevertheless, because email is often used to communicate across vast distances in terms of both location and time, many social cues apparent in more traditional modes of conversation such as face-to-face meetings are absent. Many people become overloaded with more email messages than they have time to respond to. As a result, many messages are lost or go unanswered, which has the effect of disrupting workflow and efficiency, particularly where a sender of a message is expecting a response. As personal and business relations increasingly rely on email, responsiveness to email messages may affect the quality of the relationships. It can be difficult and time consuming for a sender of an email message who is awaiting a response message from a recipient of the message to accurately determine or know when to expect the response, particularly in situations where the recipient takes longer than expected to respond. The sender may have an expectation as to how quickly a particular recipient will respond to the message based on, for example, past experiences. Generally, for each individual email user, message response latency tends to be consistent. The time taken by a recipient to respond, however, can be delayed by many factors that may not be known by the sender such as, for example, the recipient's current workload, the size of the recipient's unread email message queue, or absence from the workplace. Where a sender is expecting an immediate response from a recipient that is not received, the sender may opt to attempt to communicate with the recipient through another electronic communication medium such as instant messaging or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology. In situations where the recipient has not yet replied because he or she is unavailable for communication, these attempts are inefficient and counterproductive for the sender.